Creole Fails DNA Test

[arisbe]

"My son was flabbergasted by the results," says Joseph. "He said, 'Dad, you mean for 50 years you've been passing for black?'" Joseph admits that, strictly speaking, he has. But he's not sure if he can or wants to do anything about that at this point. For all the lingering effects of institutional racism, he's been perfectly content being a black man; it has shaped his worldview and the course of his life in ways that cannot, and probably should not, be altered. Yet Joseph struggles to balance the intellectual dishonesty of saying he's black with the unimpeachable honesty of a lifelong experience of being black. "What do I do with this information?" he says, sounding more than a little exasperated. "It was like finding out you're adopted. I don't want to be disingenuous with myself. But I can't conceive of living any other way. It's a question of what's logical and what's visceral."

From AlterNet

Comments

What an

[dotmeister.livejournal.com]

amazing story. I sit here with my mouth open, thinking about everything.

[rengal.livejournal.com]

Who cares what your freakin' blood test is - you are who you are. Are you going to let science define who you are? I should certainly hope not.
I am adopted, as is my sister. We have always been in our family, always been my mom and dad's daughters, and hold the family's background and cultural identity as our own.

I continue not to understand why 'blood' is so very integrally important to some people's idea of self...

Well I understand

[dotmeister.livejournal.com]

But thinking you are something you aren't, could be a huge culture shock for anyone. It doesn't change who you are, but it might have changed how one is treated, and unfortunately, that is a sad fact of life.

[melanie.livejournal.com]

wow, that was just an amazing article. i feel so much for this man, and the way his entire worldview has been rattled. thanks for pointing us to it.

[orlandobr.livejournal.com]

I think it was Clarence Page who wrote: ""If people cannot call themselves what they want to call themselves, they cannot call themselves truly free". If this man want to call himself black, go ahead!

However, I want to say the "professional victim" tone of the article: "Yet this knowledge has not deterred the racism many Europeans continue to harbor toward Africans, nor the wariness Africans harbor toward Europeans..." is annoying.

Blacks cannot be racist, they merely are wary? I suppose this idea somehow won't find much support among the Tutsis...

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

The idea won't find much support with my relatives, either, quite a few of which are mixed race couples and had just as many problems with blacks as whites because of it, down to being denied housing.

So odd to see my little cousins get an awareness of what they are. Nearly 3, and 4 years of age, they were warbling to me when I saw them, "my daddy is black". Other relatives, like my sister and brother in law, I didn't know them as small children, their identities about it seemed to be set, already. But to watch that awareness in children is very interesting.

[imago-gal.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of an interesting article about a black woman who married a white man and when they became pregnant, she spent a lot of time making sure her husband was prepared to have a mixed race child. When the child was born, she was entirely unprepared for the fact that her child looked more like her father than her mother.

She writes that she is often considered the nanny of the child rather than the child's mother. And when her child throws a tantrum in the store, she has to think about her actions because no one considers the child hers.

Racial identity is much more fluid than most people think...